Reading to be done before Class: AE Articles 7 "High-Tech Trash", 25 "Landfill-on-Sea" CES Chapter 14, Additional Article provided in class
Come to class with a basic familiarity with the following concepts and ideas: Hazardous Waste, recycling, minimizing, Woburn, Mass case study, cluster, epidemiology, superfund, National Priority List, minamata Bay, Love Canal.
Additional Assignment: Hazardous waste recycling argument due

Today we start off with a discussion of recycling. This is probably what most of you think of when you think of helping to conserve environmental resources. Often it seems as if environmental activism gets reduced to recycling. This is because it is a simple thing that you as an individual can do to help the environment. However, it is awfully difficult to recycle if one lacks the means to do so. While the City of Valparaiso recycles much of its waste (diverting 45% of waste from the landfill) other cities have not done as well. Chicago's "blue bag" recycling program is currently under fire. Residents purchase blue bags, put recyclables in them, and then place them on the curb. The bags are included with the other trash and then the recyclables are picked out at sorting facilities. Furthermore not all of the trash goes to facilities that sort the recyclables out and allegations of political corruption abound. These revelations may serve to discourage participation in recycling in Chicago even if a better program is put in place.

Some claim that we really do not need to recycle because there is really plenty of landfill space. While this may be true in some places, a particular concern for those communities surrounding big cities like Chicago is the possibility that trash from a neighboring big city may be imported to their towns. As you may know, just such a controversy over a landfill site in Porter County was fought a few years ago. While the developers suggested that they would limit the landfill to local trash, they conceded that they would import trash from out of state if local trash weren't profitable enough. 2000 people turned out to protest the landfill in part because Native American burial mounds are located on the proposed site.*

Disposing of waste can be approached as technical and scientific problems. After all, science and engineering can help us find way of re-using our waste products. Many of the gains in efficiency in both the use of materials and energy are the product of technical advances. What is also clear from the readings this week and throughout the course is that managing waste is also a social, political, and economic problem. While recycling is a way that you can contribute to "saving the planet" much more needs to happen before recycling is widespread, economically feasible, and politically popular. Helping the environment then has to involve more than just individual action. As the case studies we read this week show, collective political organizing and community activism is responsible for building political support for many of the environmental laws and amenities that we enjoy today. The next time you recycle a pop can, think about not just the good that you are doing by recycling, but also about everything that had to happen to put that recycling bin there for you to use.

In addition to discussing the results of your homework assignment we will discuss the two articles you have read for today. One emerging issue is the disposal of electronic waste.  With rapid technological change comes the need to deal with tons of obsolete electronics.  Much of this e-waste is exported to other countries that have lower environmental standards than we do.  Are there better solutions to the problem of e-waste?  Finally we take a second look at the Pacific Garbage patch.  Of particular interest here is the notion that your actions here and now can have consequences very far away and into the future.

Questions we will discuss:

1. What are the rules and facilities for recycling where you come from? Why are recycling systems different? Do some sound better than others?

2. What toxic waste products do you have in your home? What is the best way to dispose of them?

3. Why are controversies over where to put landfills so contentious? Where is the best place to dispose of solid waste? If NIMBY where?

4. What should Chicago do to improve its recycling program?

5. What should Valparaiso do to improve its recycling program?

6. What should VU do to improve its recycling program?

7. How can we better dispose of or recycle our e-waste?  What are the best solutions?

8.  Both articles on e-waste and the Pacific garbage patch emphasize the fact that dealing with waste is not just a local issue. How can we deal with our solid waste locally?  What options are available to us?

*A claim supported by Professor Ron Janke of Valparaiso University and Mark Schurr of the University of notre Dame and accepted by the state archeology office. The claim was contested by the company that wanted to build the landfill.